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Coaching in Presentation Skills

My approach to Presentation Skills coaching is probably best addressed
by answering the questions I am most frequently asked by potential clients:

What kind of people is
your coaching best suited to?

I seek to help almost anyone – usually in the business
field, please see the A-Z of client
sectors below - who needs to face an audience, be it in a boardroom, a
conference hall or beyond.

Increasingly I work one-to one with senior executives in
very large companies. I also work with teams, which has the great advantage of
enabling members to learn from each other’s strengths and weaknesses. A further
benefit is that it enables us to work on ensuring that the team come over as
truly ‘team-like’.

One: Sometimes
my work is part of a programme to help in preparing the client to step into a
top position; in other instances it may simply be a refresher process or a
personal goal to improve their Presentation Skills.

Three: Personal
needs identified by individuals and their employers that usually have their roots in
a combination of nerves and inexperience. These can be worked on, with the
potential for rapid improvement, provided
that the individuals concerned get the opportunity to put their learning into
action in the sort-to-medium term.

Mostly though, it is a more a question of helping
people who are perceived as ‘ineffective’ in terms of engaging their audience
and achieving a desired result. My approach to helping all clients, and
especially those in category 3 is to instil a greater sense of Confidence,
Impact and Memorability.

Typical format of a coaching
session?

The format is entirely dependent on the client’s brief for
the session. Typically, though it will go as follows:

Short introduction by myself to the Rules of
Magic

Explaining how they enhance key Presentation
Skills principles

Delegates each deliver a presentation of 10-15
minutes in length.

Ideally this should be a real presentation they
have delivered recently ie with a specific audience and objectives.

I give immediate feedback to the presentation

In terms of both construction and delivery – and
fellow team members are invited to add their comments.

Coaching follows, as determined by the initial presentations
and specifics that have been briefed in advance.

Inspirational videos are used to illustrate key
elements of best practice.

For full-day sessions, a working lunch break
provides the opportunity for delegates either to:

Re-think their presentations according to advice
given throughout the morning, or:

Rehearse a specially tailored magic trick that
they will be asked to present during the afternoon.

Coaching continues in the afternoon,
interspersed by re-presentations and magic tricks.

Group discussion on what delegates will do
differently in future and techniques and materials they can share.

Summary of the key points discussed during the
day, wrapped up in a Derren Brown-style mindreading trick.

Delegates each receive follow up notes of
comments that have been made throughout the day and a copy of my book!

How does the magic element work?

First, the back story: I started applying magical
principles to my own presentation skills when, midway through my career in PR I
got the bug for magic. I hired the magician Fay Presto to entertain my staff
and I was bowled over – I immediately started seeking out the shops, magazines
and conventions and seeking out magic shows wherever I could find them. The
more I learned about magic, the more I came to realise that many of the
psychological principles for directing attention, persuading and convincing
that lie behind the tricks could be equally effective in real life. I soon
found I was doing things at work that I had learned through the world of magic.
Eventually I gained membership of the world’s most prestigious magic society,
The Magic Circle. This enabled me to mix with some of the finest

magical minds
and to use the extensive library facilities to further research what I was
identifying as the ‘Rules of Magic’ – techniques that the best magicians use
instinctively and which I believe prove equally effective in the world at
large.

In terms of how I apply the Rules of Magic to my
training, I should start by saying that I can play the magic up or down
according to the brief. With some very high-level corporate situations there
has been no mention of magic whatsoever; on awaydays, however, where the brief
is often to have some fun (with the additional hidden brief of ‘team
building’), I build in as much magic as possible – as long as it helps to make
a point. Occasionally the perfect brief comes in – “we have been losing too
many pitches and the feedback suggests we are lacking a ‘spark’. Can you help
to add some ‘magic’ to our presentation style?”

I usually ask delegates to present a magic trick as
part of the coaching. I always thought this would be useful in getting people
out of their comfort zone and focusing on areas such as opening and closing,
and working with visual aids. In fact, it has proved invaluable in a number of
ways. Some delegates become overly stiff and formal when they get up to present
and this is immediately apparent as they deliver their business presentation.
When it comes to their magic trick, however, their body language loosens up, a
smile comes to their face and that can be heard in their voice. They tell
stories, often about themselves, which makes the audience warm to them and as a
result everything they say comes over as more convincing. Above all, they
realise that the success of the trick depends on the ‘ta-dah’ moment at the end
that they want the audience to go away remembering and talking about. It dawns
on them that ‘my business presentation needs one of those too!’ and one of the
most common presentation pitfalls is addressed directly. They go away realising
that the starting point to success in their business presentation is to be more
like they were as they presented their magic trick. The tricks I give them are all 'proper' tricks. Indeed, I ask them to sign a simple secrecy agreement in order to avoid trouble with The Magic Circle, but the tricks are easy to do, so that they can concentrate on their presentational style and techniques. Usually, I can tailor the tricks to the client, for instance incorporating key selling messages and perhaps building to a surprise climax that focuses on the company logo.

Two ‘special’ formats.

1 Making PowerPoint the Presenter’s Friend

PowerPoint is ubiquitous and the
default presentation aid for business people all over the world. And yet ‘Death
by PowerPoint’ has become the instantly understood catchphrase to cover
presentations that are ineffective, boring or generally substandard.

I believe PowerPoint can be a fantastic tool - provided it is put in its proper place and
used as a tool to support a speaker in
getting their point across to a specific audience.

By asking clients to deliver a
business presentation early in a coaching session I can very quickly assess how
much time will need to be spent on this particular topic.

For any individuals or teams who
need to focus specifically on their use of PowerPoint I can gear an entire
session in this direction under the banner ‘Making PowerPoint the Presenter’s
Friend’. It is not about how to
operate PowerPoint or make it look beautiful – it is about making PowerPoint truly support the presenter, so it
includes all the elements of best presentation practice that were established
pre-PowerPoint and remain essential today.

Such as session requires a full
day, so that participants can re-think and re-build their presentations during
an extended lunch break.They then
return to re-present and surprise themselves at how fluent and impactful they
can become once PowerPoint has been put in its proper place – as a tool to
truly support them.

2 Company Awaydays

I amoften asked to run or contribute to company ‘awaydays’ – typically
where the team needs to have some fun and do some bonding, while enhancing
their skills.This can involve anything
from a short talk to a complete magic show – performed by the team members. Please
call me to discuss how I might be able to help in this area.

Ideal numbers for
team sessions?

Between four and six for a full day is the ideal number. To
gain real benefit you need to do a fair amount of actual presenting and that
becomes restricted with bigger numbers. The best alternative if bigger numbers must be included and a second day is not an option is to get people presenting
in teams. This both overcomes time constraints and introduces valuable lessons
about team dynamics and pacing.

How much time?

This should be determined by the specifics of the brief and
the needs of the delegates, but as a general rule:

Sessions for individuals are best as half-days
(3-4 hours)

Sessions for teams are best as full-days (7-8
hours with lunch break)

Exceptions can occur in situations where delegates need to
‘re-think’ their presentations after an initial run through and some associated
advice. This can often be covered by extending the lunch break, but is
sometimes best achieved by arranging two separate half-day sessions.

Where?

Usually at the client’s offices or a venue they have
arranged. I do not have facilities of my own, but can arrange them at cost
price if required.

Working in the rooms that are used regularly by clients for
their presentations has obvious advantages. It helps if clients can provide a
projector, screen and flipchart but, conference facilities aside, I provide
everything else.

I am based in London but work throughout the UK and enjoy
going further afield. Training assignments to date have taken me to France,
Spain, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Portugal and Swaziland.

Do I video record
participants?

I can video record and I always carry a camera, but I avoid reaching for it automatically as tends to happen with many
Presentation Skills coaches.

There are a number of good reasons for this, which I am
happy to explain. I prefer, however, to video record only there is a specific
objective (the client’s or my own) for doing so.

Who are your clients?

You have probably already noticed the complete lack of familiar
logos and highly polished generic quotes. I keep the identity of my clients and
the specifics of my work with them completely confidential. Even if they are
kind enough to offer a supportive quote, my response is that I want them to take full credit for their
presentation prowess. If, however they would like to pass on some secrets of the source of their success discreetly to close colleagues that would be fantastic!

In in this forum I can do little more that suggest the
following: If you think of the names of your providers of mobile phone
services, insurance, property, education, banking, energy, betting, health, corporate catering,
magazine publishing and retailing, I have probably worked for several of them!

If you need reassurance, then I am more than happy to meet
up and discuss your specific needs. This will enable me to find someone similar
you could talk to for a reference and I always recommend starting on a ‘suck it
and see’ basis to assess how we both get on.

Do you run ‘Public’
sessions?

No, because they do not lend themselves to the confidential
and tailored nature of my coaching. The exception is certain talks I do for organisations such as the British Library
Business Unit; also certain trade bodies such as RICS, whose members can attend
my talks as part of their CPD programme.

Do you offer other
forms of coaching?

Aside from some coaching in Creative Thinking that I offer
mainly for PR executives, I focus entirely on Presentation Skills. Through the leadership
communication company Aziz Corporate I do, however, work alongside experts
in areas such as Voice, Image, Influencing & Personal Impact, Pressure
Management and Media Relations. I am happy to make introductions and can
promise that my work can become part of a seamless overall programme where
required.